Friday, July 31, 2020

NEW: Schweikert's $1.1M In Ethics Probe-Related Legal Fees Dwarfs $50,000 Fine; "My Greatest Sin...Thinking I Was One Of the Good Guys"

"[M]y greatest sin may be my arrogance of thinking I was one of the good guys." That was one of the confessions Rep. David Schweikert made to investigators during his long ethics probe while trying to divert responsibility to his former Chief of Staff. However, the bipartisan Ethics Committee concluded that he not only had been sticking his head in the sand, but had personally committed some of the most serious allegations.

Arizona Rep. David Schweikert's campaign contributors have paid the $1.1M in attorney's fees racked up by his campaign committee in the two-year long ethics probe that concluded today with a reprimand and a $50,000 fine. The campaign has only raised $2M during that time, which means 55 cents of every dollar raised went to the lawyers.

Schweikert (R-CD6) still owes the principal attorneys $67,664, in fact. And, during the recent pre-primary reporting period, 86 cents of every dollar raised went back out the door to that firm.

By voice vote this morning, the House adopted the bipartisan Ethics Committee's report finding 11 violations, reprimanding Schweikert and requiring the Congressman to pay a $50,000 fine. Rep. Schweikert's counsel had negotiated that agreement, and the Congressman did express some disagreements with the Investigative Subcommittee's report.

Schweikert complained that the ISC relied too heavily on testimony from his former Chief of Staff Oliver Schwab. He noted that Schwab had given reasons for the investigators to question his truthfulness. The Ethics Committee responded that the penalties against Rep. Schweikert would have been harsher if it had accepted portions of Schwab's testimony that were uncorroborated. 

Further, the Committee and the Congressman agreed that the final count was based upon David Schweikert's own inaccurate statements to the investigators. The ISC believed that those statements hindered the investigation itself.
"The ISC’s finding with respect to lack of candor, however, was not based solely on a few memory lapses, but based on numerous blanket statements that the Member has never and would never take certain actions, despite testimony and documentation from multiple witnesses to the contrary, and a failure to address substantial campaign finance reporting allegations for over a year, despite the ISC’s repeated requests in that regard."
The other agreed-upon violations were significant:
--Between 2010 and 2017, he permitted his campaign committee to extensively violate campaign finance laws. His reports were riddled with a $100,000 made-up loan and loan repayments, disbursements that did not take place, more than $140,000 in contributions that went unreported. (Counts 1-6)
--Between 2011 and 2018, he permitted Schwab to make illegal contributions to the campaign, totaling more than $270,000. Congressional staff are not permitted to spend money on the Member's campaign, sometimes even if they are reimbursed. (Count 7)
--Congressional staff were inappropriately reimbursed by the campaign committee for personal services (such as babysitting) and food for the Congressman. (Count 8)
--Between 2011 and 2017, he permitted taxpayer monies - through his Congressional office budget - to be used for campaign purposes and unofficial purposes. The inappropriate uses of staff time, Congressional office space, and office funds was in addition to compelling staff to perform campaign tasks. (Counts 9 and 10)
-- The repeated lack of candor and misstatements that hindered the investigation. (Count 11)

Of course, Arizona's Politics has extensively reported on Schweikert's campaign finance reports over the past 10 years, and has even attempted to investigate his personal loans to the campaign committee. And, a current review of Schweikert's FEC (Federal Election Commission) reports indicates that he has not yet amended those reports to properly report the violations detailed by the Ethics Committee's investigations. Interestingly, requiring those years of falsified reports to be corrected was not part of the agreement between the Committee and Schweikert. (The FEC is once again quorum-less.)

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Tuesday, July 28, 2020

FACT CHECK: No, Sen. McSally's Campaign Did NOT Pocket Salvation Army Contributions

UPDATE, 4:45pm: Salon has significantly re-worked its article to remove the FALSE "cash grab" allegations. It now ACCURATELY notes the campaign paused fundraising. Campaign DID receive contributions during that period but had never promised to pass on "passive" contributions to Salvation Army.

The accusation: Arizona Senator Martha McSally's campaign is guilty of a $300,000 "cash grab", keeping money that was supposed to go to the Salvation Army for pandemic relief efforts. That is the claim by Salon today, attempting to analyze campaign finance reports to bolster that effort. 

In April, Arizona's Politics investigated how the campaign set up their "15 Days of Giving", when they announced that they had helped raise "more than $212,000" while ceasing campaign fundraising activities. The facts: the Senator's campaign did NOT receive those Salvation Army donations and there is no evidence that the campaign either violated campaign finance laws or pocketed any money.

Salon's reporter went through the campaign's quarterly report filed 12 days ago, which included the early April period in question. Seeing no disbursements to the Salvation Army, he concluded that the monies donated to the campaign during those days would be donated. The Arizona Republic's website  publicized the article this afternoon.

However, the campaign did not promise to turn over any contributions made to the campaign to the
Salvation Army. Instead, the promise was to cease "fundraising activities", and a separate website for contributions to the religious non-profit was set up and promoted by the campaign.

The set-up was not clearly made public by the campaign. So, Arizona's Politics inquired back in April. The full exchange is below, but the gist is that the campaign set up a separate website and publicized it.* Those contributions went DIRECTLY to the Salvation Army. There is no reason to believe otherwise.

Mystery solved. And, as Arizona Republic columnist E.J. Montini put it in his follow-up to the initial column: "If Salon sandbagged the McSally campaign it should be ashamed. And if by noting that article I exacerbated the problem I apologize."

CONCLUSION: The accusation by Salon that the McSally campaign executed a "cash grab" is FALSE.

Full exchange, 4/21/20:
Arizona's Politics: "I first saw this earlier today on Twitter, and raised these questions that I'm hoping you can answer:

Were those contributions routed through the campaign committee? If so, limited to $2800, no corporations, applies to contribution limits, etc. If not, how was it tracked & will there be disclosure?
McSally campaign: "Hello! Thanks for reaching out. 

No donations were sent through the campaign committee, Senator McSally believes it’s a time to come together, not for politics.

While the Senator made the request, the donations were made to Salvation Army of Arizona directly and are treated as any other nonprofit donation.

Donations given on the 15DaysofGiving.care website (which is what we promoted) went directly to Salvation Army. They are a 501 c3 and they tracked and told us how much they raised from our efforts. Any questions about disclosing donors should be routed to SA."

*Added, 2:30pm: McSally's video announcing the "15 Days of Giving" fundraising pause announced the separate website (www.15DaysOfGiving.care). That website is still live, and it takes clickers to a Salvation Army donate page (with special coding to credit McSally campaign).

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WATCH: West Valley Residents Are "Scared" By Protests and Antifa, Rep. Lesko Tells Attorney General (ARIZONA'S POLITICAL SHORTS)

12:30pm: WATCH: West Valley Residents Are "Scared" By Protests and Antifa, Rep. Lesko Tells Attorney General

"My constituents are scared," Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko told U.S. Attorney General William Barr today during a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing. Lesko then spoke about riots, looting and statues being downed, before asking the AG why "autonomous zones in these Democrat-led cities are dangerous".  (The video of the exchange is below.)

Rep. Lesko's (R-CD8) opening question also received some national attention when she twice mispronounced colleague Rep. Pramila Jayapal's name while criticizing her comments about the Seattle autonomous zone. The Democratic Representative interjected and asked that Lesko at least correctly pronounce her name; Lesko repeated the correct pronunciation and moved on.

AG Barr agreed with her that such occupations are dangerous, suggesting that they supplant democratically-elected governments.


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Thursday, July 9, 2020

BREAKING, READ Governor's New Executive Order Limiting Indoor Dining


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The March 24 Executive Order postponing evictions. It is set to expire later this month.


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